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of China’s “healthy Marxist-Leninist forces.” Although the PLA had been
ruthlessly repressing radical Red Guards and imposing order since late 1968,
the situation in China was still far from stable. Moreover, the PLA essentially
took over running the country as the Red Guard upheaval was repressed.
By 1969, the PLA was deeply enmeshed in administering China—and not
defending China’s frontiers. China’s defense capabilities might look weak to
Moscow, while China’s Maoist forces were about to consolidate their victory
in the form of a “Bonapartist” (as Moscow called it) military dictatorship.
Although this is speculation, it seems likely that Mao framed the decision
to use lethal force in an ambush against Soviet forces in a larger strategic
context. Armed confrontation with the Soviet Union would also inoculate
China’s reconstructed CCP apparatus (which was being rebuilt as the Red
Guard were suppressed) against reinfiltration by Soviet revisionism.
Soviet leaders responded strongly to the ambush at Zhenbao. The clash
touched several Soviet sensitivities: huge numbers of Chinese pressing against
the thinly populated but resource-rich Russian Far East, claimed by Beijing
as “Chinese territory stolen by Czarist imperialism”; the possibility of PRC
alignment with US imperialism against the Soviet Union following the model
of Yugoslavia’s Tito; and leadership of China by Mao Zedong, who appar-
ently feared neither world war nor thermonuclear war. As with Mao, Soviet
considerations went far beyond river islands to broader strategic calculations.
Following the first clash on March 2, Moscow prepared for a second
fight at Zhenbao under conditions more advantageous to the Soviet side.
Reinforcements, artillery, and tanks were rushed to the Zhenbao area. On the
night of March 14–15, the Soviets unleashed a massive rocket bombardment to
a depth of twenty kilometers into Chinese territory.^30 When daylight broke,
Soviet forces launched a full-scale assault to secure Zhenbao, using armor and
heavy artillery. The PLA responded in kind. Fighting was heavy. Following the
March 15 battle, armed clashes erupted all along the Sino-Soviet border. For
nearly six months, China and the Soviet Union found themselves locked in a
border war. Soviet pressure was greatest in Xinjiang, where PLA logistic lines
were stretched thin and where Soviet front lines were fed by the Soviet Central
Asian rail and road network. On August 13, Soviet forces seized control of
a disputed and sharply contested hill overlooking a strategic pass in western
Xinjiang, destroying an entire Chinese regiment in the process.^31 Tw o w e e k s
after the battle on the Xinjiang border, Beijing ordered all China’s provinces
and autonomous regions bordering the Soviet Union to enter a state of “high
alertness” and “full preparation to fight a war against aggression.”^32
Soviet leaders considered a range of options. Defense Minister Andrei
Grechko advocated large-scale attack against China’s industrial and popula-
tion centers using large thermonuclear weapons producing vast amounts of
radioactive fallout that would very substantially reduce the Chinese popula-
tion.^33 A war with China was inevitable, Grechko argued, and time was on